


a case of you

by irnan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 10:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2188725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spy-like, Natasha Romanov pokes her nose in places it probably doesn't belong, reads letters definitely not addressed to her, and attaches some distinctly odd sort-of-superstitions to other people's personal belongings. Meanwhile Bucky Barnes is a very charming sort of person, even when he's a little messed up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a case of you

**Author's Note:**

> Wow look I wrote a vaguely id-ficcy post-CATWS shipfic from Natasha's POV, how unprecedented. *sighs* I posted the Nat and Bucky dancing section of this onto my journal once as a one-shot, but it fit so neatly into this fic I just had to re-use it. Title from Joni Mitchell.

Natasha found them in a storage facility outside of Washington DC. She'd traced it through nineteen different offshore accounts and twenty dummy corporations, most of them sat in Switzerland or the British Virgin Islands, and finally come up trumps. It belonged to Pierce personally; that was what had made Nick suspicious in the first place.

When he had rung her up to ask her to look into it she had very nearly told him to go to Hell and stay there. Oh, so now you know who to trust, do you? But he was Nick, and that was just the way he worked, and six months ago it would not have bothered her like this, and if she wanted to hold on to some part of what they meant to each other she was just going to have to grit her teeth and put up with his games; everyone had a foible, she could manage. So Natasha Romanov climbed in her car and drove out of DC one autumn morning, humming country songs to herself and trying to pretend she wasn't still ticked off at her boss.

The storage locker wasn't anything hugely important: bits and pieces, some sketches for experimental weaponry, some boxes of old files, most of them censored; a suitcase full of cash and another full of clothes, just in case. Natasha nodded judiciously. Not dumb. Not dumb at all. (She had gone to the funeral, a subdued and abandoned affair, the sister white to the lips but dry-eyed, her children and her brother's clustered around her wearing expressions of blank incomprehension. Victoria Pierce had already given half her inheritance to charity, paid for hospital bills and SHIELD agents' funerals. Natasha had bet Clint twenty bucks it was an act, but nothing had been found to implicate her yet.) But sitting neatly on one of the tables up by the wall was a locked steel box, pristine in the jumble of cardboard and suitcases. It was a matter of moments to get the lock open, but when she had Natasha started wishing she'd left it alone instead.

Zola had liked his trophies, it seemed, and Pierce had inherited them.

Half the left sleeve of the jacket was gone. It, and the trousers, were stained a dull brown with long-dried blood. They stank of mothballs and airless boxes. The boots were wrecked, stained with mud and water, the laces had been cut through, God, socks, even his underwear. Christ, don't let the bones of his arm and hand be in here, don't, don't. She would - she would set light to the whole fucking storage facility.

She still might. Her hands were shaking. Cigarette case. A notebook, pages yellow with age, that had a few banknotes folded inside, seventy-year-old currency. The writing on the pages was too faded to make out, it had been done in pencil, and speaking of which, there it was, a stump he’d apparently been in the habit of chewing on the end of. A Zippo. A folded paper that nearly fell apart when she touched it: it proved to be a drawing of a Bucky Bear holding a rifle in his paws and glowering intently over a cliff-edge, shorts and mask and all. His very fur bristled with determination, trees and grass in the background roughly sketched; no prizes for guessing the artist. Finally she lifted out an envelope, battered and yellow as the notebook. Inside, tightly folded, there was a letter. Natasha lifted it out between her finger and thumb, unfolded it as gently as the drawing. Reading the tight, old-fashioned handwriting was a chore: _Dear Bucky_ \- something something _school_ \- _hope Steve_ \- then _Mam wrote you_ , a sharp jolt to Natasha's spine. She flicked the pages and peered at the signature: _love always, your sister Becca_.

Zola had read this? Pierce had fingered these pages, seen that drawing? Natasha shuddered. She fished a plastic bag out of her kit and slid letter and drawing both into it, gently gently. Then she went for the gasoline and shook it over the clothes, the cigarette case, the notebook. She shifted the jacket to drench the shirt and jumper underneath, and as she did so something metallic glittered - Barnes' dog tags. Natasha picked them up and hooked them around her own neck without thinking; then she set light to the box.

Halfway back to DC she still felt nauseous.

*********

Months later she caught Barnes alone one evening in the kitchen of Steve's apartment and said, "I've got something that belongs to you."

Barnes laughed. "Don't really have all that many possessions." She liked hearing him laugh, but her heart was beating wildly in her throat: they weren't just alone in the kitchen, they were alone in the apartment, and it made her hands clammy. "What did I lose and then forget?" Wry, slanted grin; eye-roll, scoffing at himself in spite of everything.

Natasha smiled a bit as she reached into her pocket and drew the tags out. The overhead light shone off them as they lay on the table, and Barnes reached for them as if hypnotized by the glint. "James Buchanan" - he looked up at her with a too-quick jerk of his head - "what, as a _reminder_?"

Startled, she said, "They're yours," inanely.

"Tagged and numbered in case I run off like a stray dog." His voice was sharp.

Natasha bit her lip. "That's not - I'm sorry, I thought - I thought they might mean something to you. Clint keeps his, and I just thought - I'm sorry."

His fingers had clenched. Now he opened them slowly, as if forcing himself, and let the tags clatter back onto the table. He took a breath, and then another; his mouth twisted, a little bit desperate. "I - thank you - but I - I can't right now." He shook his head, hair brushing against his jaw. Natasha felt cold watching the stiff lines of his shoulders, the ramrod spine. Suddenly Barnes pushed the tags towards her with his fingertips. They scraped over the wood with a noise that seemed far louder than it was. "Will you - would you keep them for me? I’ll – I’ll want them back some day. I think. Probably. Thank you."

She didn't let him see her surprise. In her lap, under the table, her own hands began to uncurl, and she forced herself away from thoughts of the gun at the small of her back. "Sure. Just, you know. Just ask. When you want them."

He smiled at her, a little tentative, and Natasha had to remind herself that he was - that he was the Winter Soldier, and that she had just had a very narrow escape. Typical man. Try and do something nice for him and he went off on a weird brainwashed PTSD episode thing. She wished she hadn't brought them. She almost wished she hadn't kept them.

"Deal," he said. Suddenly he leaned over, dangled them from his fingers - Natasha kept herself from flinching - he looped them over her head. "Keep 'em safe for me." He said it fondly, smiling, as if they were friends, or - as if she was Becca, she supposed.

She would rather the Winter Soldier thought of her as Becca than the Black Widow. Becca wasn’t dangerous to him.

*********

It made her ashamed, but a few days after finding them Natasha had dug up some cotton gloves and carefully laid out the letter and the drawing on her own kitchen table. She had photographed the drawing and the individual pages of Becca's letter, front then back, front then back, and had then, rather laboriously, deciphered the girl's neat, formal handwriting. It was a letter filled with silly stories and teasing remarks about their brothers; it spoke of how well Becca was doing at school and how their mother was trying to teach her to cook; it asked him archly if he'd found some pretty Resistance girl to love, Becca would like an older sister, and it sent Becca's love to Steve; Mam was still angry that he had not come home to Brooklyn and told them about becoming Captain America, but Becca thought she (Mam) was terrible glad that he and Bucky were together, same as always, she barely knew to recognise them when they were apart. Would he get leave this Christmas? And - he would hate her for this - but she had bought a Bucky Bear. It was adorable! She kept it on her bedside table. Should she buy one for Steve?

Twenty-seven closely-written pages of love.

Natasha read it and read it and read it again, over and over, until she had most of it by heart. Had Barnes had it by heart by the time he had fallen? How many letters was he able to receive and send when he was in the field? Perhaps this was the first time he had heard from Becca for months; perhaps he had kept it in his jacket to pore over in quiet moments, to make him smile. Perhaps he had given it to Steve to read as well.

Becca had liked science and books and dancing. She had been flirting with a boy called Jimmy Finn, "but I don't like the way he smiles, Buck. It's so petty! But I don't." and had been in the habit of bringing Old Mrs Murdoch her groceries every Saturday, "and Buck! Thank God! She's changed housekeepers and the new one makes much better cake." 'Much' was underlined three times. She had had a way with words, this Becca; her letter had a charm that carried you over the occasional paragraph of sulky adolescence, and Natasha liked her very much.

Halfway through one guilty re-read, she hauled her notebook off the coffee table onto her knees and looked up Rebecca Sarah Barnes. _Younger sister of war hero and Howling Commando Bucky Barnes... friend of Steven Rogers, Captain America... highly intelligent and determined, with a courage worthy of her brother... school papers on pioneers such as Elizabeth Blackwell and finally obtained her medical degree... one daughter, named Jamie in honour of the brother she lost.._

Natasha shut the laptop.

*********

She taught him martial arts the same way she had taught Steve: from the ground up, starting at nil. He had the muscle memory but no idea how he’d come by it, what to do with it. Sometimes she would show him a move and he would counter it by instinct, reflexes so quick she would be reminded all over again that she was playing with fire, dancing the edge of an abyss. It terrified her; she would look up and realise she was rubbing at her hip, circling the Odessa scar with her fingertips. It excited her; she was a shameless adrenaline junkie, and to walk away from a fight with the Winter Soldier left her weak-kneed with glee.

*********

Strange dreams were nothing new; the ones that weren’t about her own atrocities were about other people’s, and sometimes she woke up snatching at new memories or the shifted lines of old ones. Other times she just had dreams, like any other normal person.

Still – this one – a bed, a bunk, narrow and dark, and she had been tucked under someone’s arm, under half his body really, his face against her shoulder, one leg flung over his, the other caught between his thighs. She remembered – remembered the scar that traced along his ribs, as if a knife had cut at him and glanced along the bone, long healed over. Her fingers had caressed it over and over.

The rest of the dream had been something about pyjamas and shooting at Loki with paintball guns in Central Park which Natasha sniggered at when she woke up, utterly forgetting the first half the way one does with dreams.

*********

She didn't often take his dog tags off. She played with them sometimes when she was reading, or watching TV, sitting still on her couch with her book balanced on her knees, one hand free to fiddle, and so fiddle she did. They clanked a little and clattered and felt cold against her skin.

She didn't know why she wore them so much. It had been a childish, silly gesture of his to loop them round her neck; he hadn't meant for her to keep them _with_ her like some kind of talisman. Zola had kept them to gloat over; Pierce had kept them... probably to prove to himself that HYDRA could do any damn thing it wanted, destroy anyone it wanted, even Captain America's closest friend. Natasha kept them because Barnes had asked her to, but that didn't mean she needed to wear them.

She didn't need to read Becca's letter either, over and over. It was such an ordinary letter about an ordinary life; there was nothing the least bit remarkable about it, except for how much they had loved each other. Maybe she wore the damn tags because Becca couldn't. But then the logical person to give them to would have been Steve. But Barnes hadn't given them to Steve. Well, Steve hadn't been there. She had.

The hell with it. She would wear the things until he asked for them back. At least that way she wasn't in danger of losing them.

*********

Natasha liked to dance. She loved the formal kind, ballroom and ballet and everything else that involved concentration, effort, skill, talent, hard work; loved to make her body into a work of art instead of a weapon. But the other kind of dancing was just as good – the kind where she went out at night and flung herself headlong into darkness and music and a mass of moving bodies, losing herself in the beat of them. Sometimes it was fun to do that alone, but other times you wanted a partner.

Disappointingly, dancing was apparently one of the few things on life that Steve Rogers was terrible at. Natasha was relieved to learn that there _was_ something, but slightly irritated that it was that. She felt like sulking.

“I’ll take you,” Barnes offered, and promptly looked shocked at himself.

She surveyed him with a critical eye. Loose jeans, bare feet, hair still not cut short though he'd look much better if he did. Clean shaven, body language slightly repressed, as if forcing himself to a diffidence the Winter Soldier had certainly never felt, and Bucky Barnes probably hadn't either.

"I'm not taking you to a ballroom," she said. "You, take your sketchpad and go draw the ducks in Central Park. You, stay where you are."

Steve - clever boy - took to his heels, cackling under his breath. Whether he took the sketchpad with him Natasha did not enquire. She was busy with her music collection.

"You know Sam's made me listen to all of it," Barnes said.

"Ah," said Natasha. "But has he made you dance to it?"

Sam had not. This was new: she made him close his eyes and concentrate on the beat, the slow relentless hammer of it, the smoky, sexy melodies, song after song, took his hands and dropped them for his hips, encouraging him to move, to sway to it with her, against her, to hold her own hips or waist or raise his hands above his head if that felt right, to not think, not even to know any steps or turns or rules, to just - just _be_.

Half an hour in, he had it. Bump and grind was about right; they rocked together and moved apart and moved together again, swaying and turning across the spacious living room, eyes half-closed, close, close, close. The last time they had been this near she had been trying to garrotte him. He had been using Steve's aftershave, a cheap, citrus-smelling shampoo. His hands were gentle, went neither too high nor too low nor too tight. His shoulders were broad, chest firm, five o'clock shadow dark. His mouth was broad and mobile, a little pouty but attractive, his nose straight, his eyes that soft grey that could be bluer or greenish depending on the light. Strands of dark hair had slid out of the knot he tied it in and framed his face, softened the angles that his recovery had put into it.

He said, "Why are you doing this?"

"I told you. I like to dance."

His hands dropped away. He stepped back. Natasha tilted her head curiously. "Not fun anymore?" The music changed - _knocked up nine months ago and what she gonna have she don't know she want neo-soul this hip-hop is old_ \- and she moved to it easily, hips and arms and torso, slow and enticing.

Barnes said, "You're friends with Steve. I understand that. You like Sam but you don't let him in, that's fair enough, none of my business. But you don't like me and you don't trust me." There was a detached note to his voice, running down the evidence and stating mere facts, but under that was frustration and curiosity and humanity.

Natasha dropped her arms and stood still, watching him.

He shrugged then, nervous, awkward under her scrutiny, and - yes - this man - this man she could answer. The detachment, no. But. He wasn't looking at her, he shuffled his feet a little. "I mean, you dig up my dog tags, where the hell did you even find them, and this – I don’t know what you’re about, but this – it's not -"

She said, "Do you remember anything about Odessa?"

"Seaport on the Black Sea," he said, surprised. "Ukraine, right?"

"Right," she said. Then she pulled her shirt up halfway up her stomach. His eyes flicked down and up, embarrassed. "The scar," she said.

"Yes -?”

"You gave me that."

He went white. His hand jerked out towards her and then pulled back clenched into a fist; he closed his eyes and uncurled his fingers. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "I didn't - still don't." Opened his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"It's not that."

"Then?"

She let the shirt drop and laughed. It was surprisingly easy. Perhaps she meant it. "I don't like being afraid. It pisses me off."

She could see him turning that over in his mind, examining it. She didn't think of it as giving him a weapon - she had told him it pissed her off - the way she handled it would determine whether it would cut her or not. The music was still thumping between them, curling and beckoning. She shimmied to it, waiting.

"Thank you," he said at last.

Natasha tossed her head as the song changed again. "You're welcome," she said, crooking her fingers at him. "Next we gotta find you some jeans that fit, sonny boy..."

James - she would call him James, she decided there and then, just to piss him off, see what happened - James came back to her then, settling back into rhythm and sway. "If you mean the really tight ones everyone's wearin' that presumably do some serious damage to your, uh, circulation -"

Oh, his voice could drop and purr when he wanted it to, and it was sexy and she loved it. He looked amazed at himself. That made her laugh out loud.

"Baby, you've got great legs. You should flash 'em."

He looked her up and down, and the way his mouth curled was just perfect. "Well," he said. "Baby. No one's ever gonna accuse you of not practicing what you preach."

Natasha grinned and spun and slid back against him, back to chest, guided his hands on her hips and rolled with it. So did he.

*********

A few weeks after that she came home and found a letter from him in her mailbox. She didn't stop to wonder how he had discovered her address; the fact that he had sent a letter instead of coming over was a way of respecting her privacy, probably, but seriously, had Steve not taught him how to email? She ripped the envelope open in the lobby of her building, waiting for the elevator, and slid a sheet of paper out.

_For Odessa. Making a start._

Still inside the envelope were two tickets for the ballet.

The elevator arrived, dinged at her, and eventually closed its doors to answer a summons from another floor. Natasha stood rooted to the spot, the paper lying smooth against her fingertips. She felt... sucker-punched, breathless, and wasn't sure why.

"You're damn right you owe me," she said aloud, and knew her voice shook. The next day she went out to their place again and marched up to him in the living room, shaking the tickets in his face.

“What do you expect me to do with these?”

“Uh – go?” He had a look like a deer frozen in place by oncoming headlights, and shrank back from her a little.

“I mean the extra one!”

“Oh.” He shrugged, tossing his book from hand to hand; the muscles in his shoulders bunched and slid under his t-shirt when he stepped back and swung his arms a little. “Uh, I mean, take your fella? I just thought you wouldn’t wanna go alone.”

And before she’d stopped to think she said, “Well there isn’t anyone, so you’d better use it yourself.”

*********

He cleaned up gorgeous, and he even seemed to enjoy the ballet. When she took him to dinner after he was attentive, funny – even charming – but she saw the way his eyes scanned the room, and the hunch of his shoulders.

“Relax,” Natasha said quietly over the main course. “You’re fine.”

Barnes looked at her ruefully. “I’m obvious, apparently.”

“Unpractised,” she said, shrugging.

“Thank you.”

“It’s the truth,” she said. “You’re a better liar than Steve. You could be good at this, if you wanted to be.”

The tilt of his head was curious, but he took a sip of wine before speaking. “Is being a liar the main qualification?”

Natasha considered it. “Depends on your definition of lies, I think. To me – I remake myself every time I’m on a mission. That’s not… always a lie.”

“I think it’s an interesting definition of truth, though.” He was grinning.

Natasha laughed and sipped her wine while she sought for the right words. “Think of it like this – people see what they expect to see. People don’t – don’t think. Don’t consider or assess. They look and things register and they pack things away into neat pre-made categories in their minds, and that’s that. The categories they have define what they see. You.” She pointed at him with the hand holding her glass, that elbow propped by her empty plate. “You’re not a war hero to these people, or a spy or an assassin. You’re a handsome man having dinner with a pretty girl. Someone might notice the glove you’re wearing and think – oh, anything. Maybe you’ve been in a car accident and you’ve got scars. Maybe you’ve got a skin disease. If they’re unusually imaginative they might hit on ‘prosthetic’. But most people are not imaginative. And if you know in advance what they will expect to see in you, is it lying if you make yourself into that expectation?”

“Of course.”

“You sound like Steve. Oh, there’s only one true you. Nonsense.”

“No, fact,” he said. “Maybe it’s different for you. I wouldn’t know. But – for me: I’m Bucky Barnes. I’m also the Winter Soldier.” His mouth twisted into a bitter pout at admitting it. “But those two men, they’re not compatible. I can’t… be both. I gotta pick a side – the true side – and stick with it.”

“You could just as easily be one on the inside and the other on the out.”

“I’m not that good a liar,” he said.

She shook her head. “I just told you. You don’t do the lying – other people do that for you. You just… let them.”

Barnes poured out the last of the wine into their glasses and put the decanter down again before he answered. “Did you pick the Widow for yourself, though? Because that must make a difference.”

“No,” said Natasha. After a moment she admitted, “But I chose to keep her.”

Barnes nodded judiciously. “Dessert?”

*********

Sometimes he sent her postcards, cheesy _I heart New York_ pictures and a single line on the back: _wish I hadn’t missed this Brando kid_ or _you know I think glam rock freaks me out_. She wrote back: _james dean baby james dean_ and _all you need to know about glam rock is david bowie_. Neither of them ever brought it up when they met. She wasn’t sure why he did it and she was even less sure why she wrote back.

*********

The Winter Soldier was a ghost. James Buchanan Barnes was not. She told herself she trusted him for Steve's sake, for the debt she owed. She trusted him for Clint's sake too, for second chances; perhaps the Winter Soldier didn’t deserve one, but nor did the Black Widow. And – and she supposed she trusted him for Becca’s, a little.

The fact that she thought of herself as trusting him at all should have worried her more than it did.

*********

“Are you gonna have a moment?” she asked, leaning over his left shoulder. He smelled of aftershave and new leather, and he was wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses balanced on the end of his nose, head tilted downwards to look over the top of them. The sun had been dancing in and out of cloudbanks all day.

Barnes put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Already did.”

“It’s a bookshop.”

“I’m aware.”

“I’m pretty sure it was founded before you –“ she twirled her hand meaningfully by her temple.

He turned his head a fraction to look at her. “This whole street used to be bookshops.”

“A bygone era,” she said solemnly.

“People don’t appreciate the finer things in life.”

Natasha smiled. “Books?”

Barnes’ grin took on an edge of fervent wonderment. “ _Paperbacks_ ,” he said.

*********

Standing before a bookshelf spined in black from end to end, she said, “Penguins aren’t really the cheapest out there anymore.”

“I’m loyal,” said Barnes, and shooed her away so he could proceed to stack his newest purchases alphabetically. Natasha called that anal-retentive. She sent him an e-reader, complete with handwritten instructions for use and the Project Gutenberg URL. He sent her a thank-you note on impeccable writing paper, handwriting as neatly formal as Becca’s. The next thing she sent him was a box of stationary. He sent her back – well actually it was hand-delivered, a neat wooden box within which nestled a set of gorgeous throwing knives.

Natasha was both charmed and taken aback. Did she not have any normal hobbies for him to pick up on? She lifted the knives out of the velvet curiously and turned them over in her hands. They were perfectly balanced, beautifully made. She supposed that they would probably save her life at some point in the future.

She rustled through her closet for a favourite dress, climbed out of jeans and blouse and slid the dress over her head. It fell around her knees with a swish of fabric that she loved. On impulse she tangled her hands in it and drew the skirt up to her hips slowly, her foot propped on a chair seat, imagining – imagining someone else’s hands snagged in the lush green folds. She bit her lip as she strapped a sheath around her thigh and slid three of the knives into it. Sturdy black against her skin, the white raised twist of a burn scar. A gift from the Winter Soldier to save her life, strapped against her leg. Natasha let the skirt drop and stood up straight. She twirled across her living room, felt the brush of the sheath against her other leg, knew without looking in the mirror that the fall of fabric hid it perfectly.

It was like – like having his hand on her, somehow. When the thought came she stood still in surprise, glancing down as if to look through the fabric at the knives. Her hands turned palm-up, empty.

Well. That was –

\- new.

*********

He could dance. And he loved Steve ridiculously. And he could cook and he smoked and he read Dickens for fun and had very decided opinions on Bob Hope and Bucky Bears and the right way to make meatballs, a minor crush on Dorothy Lamour and a tendency, apparently, to pull Becca’s hair when he thought she was being a brat to their Mam; he sent her postcards because he wanted to make her smile and he took her dancing every other week, it seemed, ringing her up and saying, in that smoky voice, _will you come out with me? I gotta move_ , at just the times she needed to herself, as if by some sixth sense. He collected Penguin classics and he liked Hellblazer comics but precious few modern superhero narratives and considered most modern science fiction to be navel-gazing nonsense, which had got him into trouble with both Steve and, surprisingly, Sam, and he liked the movies but was disgusted by the cost and shopped at farmer's markets because giant supermarkets put him on edge and - and and _and_. 

And he sent her gifts to save her life in answer to an e-reader, of all things. At first Natasha wanted to find something to give him back, but that wasn’t likely to happen, not least for the simple reason that nothing she might give him would be sufficient protection against the things he was afraid of. She wondered if she should give him Becca’s letter, but she had long since decided that she would give him that only when he asked for his tags back.

(Look at her: Natasha Romanov, secret agent extraordinaire, fretting over buying gifts for a man who had tried to kill her more than once.)

In the end she sent him a newspaper clipping advertising a ballet performance she particularly wanted to see. The tickets were in her mailbox three days later. _Pick you up at seven_ , read the accompanying note.

She wore her favourite dress; and the knives. They saw the ballet; they ate dinner; they went to a quiet bar for drinks afterwards where the band played something jazzy and slow. She passed the whole evening in a daze, a trance of unexpected but total delight that had begun when she had opened the door to him and showed no sign of stopping. When he smiled at her she remembered that she was wearing his gift on her thigh, and it put a knot in her gut that jolted her and burned.

It wasn’t so long ago that she would have taken it for fear.

He knew she was different. He read her – not easily, but well enough. He would bite his lip sometimes, boyish tic of Bucky Barnes’, and his eyes would narrow, watching her. Was it fucked-up that she was – was enjoying herself like this without telling him? Probably, yes. She walked close to him, put her hand in his elbow, breathed in his cologne, so near that the warmth of his body seemed to wrap right around her. In the cab she watched the street lights pass over his face and smiled at everything he said. She had discovered tonight that when she untied the knots the Winter Soldier put her in Bucky Barnes could make her laugh whenever he wanted. When she relaxed enough to let him he could charm her with a smile and a few sentences. When she allowed herself to _be_ herself, she could - could fall for him. 

He helped her out of the cab at her building and walked her to the door. She kissed his cheek, feeling half a fool and half an actress in a Hollywood flick of seventy years ago.

“Thank you very much for a lovely evening.” The words were dry, but she couldn’t stop smiling.

He said, “Likewise. Good night, Natalia.” Then he kissed her hand.

Oh _god_.

It was bad manners to skip with glee until she was out of his sight, she told herself firmly, and walked across the lobby to the elevators feeling the weight of his gaze on her back like – like the weight of the knives in their sheath at her thigh.

*********

Oh god almighty, fuck fuck fuck, was she really doing this? _Really_??? With _him_? With the Winter Soldier?

Well no – with Bucky Barnes. Semantics?

No. It was just as he’d said in the restaurant all those weeks ago; he had picked his side and stuck to it. It wasn’t his fault she'd discovered she wanted to bang the side he’d picked like a screen door in a hurricane. 

She was so, so screwed. Not literally, more’s the pity. But screwed just the same.

*********

She spent a week or so chewing her nails off and trying speeches on for size – _I know we’ve tried to kill each other in the past but I’d really like it if we put that behind us (even further behind us?), ripped each other’s clothes off and locked ourselves in your bedroom for, I don’t even know, at least a week? At least._

Too blunt. Too elaborate. In the end she thought, _just jump him. At the earliest opportunity_.

And so:

Smacking a box of cornflakes back onto the grocery store shelf and stretching up on tiptoes as he turned to her – “Are you _sure_ all this is edible?” and then a muffled “oomph!” when she fit her mouth to his.

*********

Later, he said, “How come?” Her weight was pressing him into the couch cushions, and his hands on the small of her back, the top of her thigh, were a firebrand through her clothes.

“Oh God! You whinge about modern-day breakfast foods every time we go to a store for _anything_ , and I just thought – that’s it – I have to either slap you or snog you.” Natasha rasped her fingers through the stubble on his jaw and chin.

“That’s a turnaround,” he said, turning his head to press a kiss against her fingertips. His eyes glinted with mischief.

“I can go,” she said loftily.

“Please don’t.” Calm perhaps, but nakedly honest. Then he bit his lip and grinned at her, eyebrows climbing, a little-boy look of impish charm.

Natasha said, “I’m not good at honest.”

James shrugged. “I’m not Steve,” he said.

She understood: Steve was the type who couldn’t bear less than honesty, couldn’t accept an offer less than the worth of his own. It was his perfect right, but Natasha would probably never be able to match it.

“Don’t you care?” She knew she was looking a gift horse in the mouth, but curiosity got the better of her.

He pulled a face minutely. “I don’t expect stuff of people,” he said. “They don’t change. You either love ‘em or you don’t. Although” – he looked thoughtful – “maybe I just don’t need as much from people. If that even makes sense.”

“Daaaaaaangerous words to toss around,” said Natasha.

“The four-letter one?”

She shrugged one-shouldered.

“I’ll toss it if I want.” He shrugged back, smiling again. The way he looked at her was making her throat feel dry. “Like I said, I can’t change it. Or you.”

She swallowed hard. “It’s been how many months since the last time your brain unravelled?”

“Hey, you jumped me in a grocery store, sister.”

That was a fact. She did try not to snigger.

“And after all that effort at the ballet, too.”

“I like taking you to the ballet,” he said, leaning up to brush his lips against hers. “No matter how the evening ends.”

*********

Locked away in her lamplit bedroom he undid her shirt button by slow agonising button. She stood before him, alternating between licking at her lips and biting them, swallowing her smiles, eyes skittering – everywhere: his ridiculous chest, his mouth red with kissing, his narrow waist, the cut of his hips above jeans gone too-tight, hidden by calloused fingers and silver ones handling the cheap cotton of her clothes as if it were silk. She flexed her fingers against his hips, dragged them along the lines of his abs, thought about getting that belt open, kissing the underside of his jaw again, the bare skin of his chest against hers –

“Hey.” Solemn ceremony interrupted for the clank of his metal fingers against the dog tags at her neck. Natasha looked down and cackled in spite of herself.

“Oh god. Pay no attention to the woman behind the green curtain.” She shook the shirt off her shoulders and stretched luxuriously, tugging the chain over her head. He was busy staring at her chest when she took his hand in hers and dropped the tags into them.

“Heh.” James turned them over in his palm. “I forgot I asked you to keep them…”

“And now you know for sure that I’m weird and messed-up and creepy.”

“Eh,” he said, and met her eyes. “You’ve been wearing them the whole time?”

“Not the _whole_ time.” She wouldn’t be ashamed.

He laughed. “I’m sorta glad – I mean, I don’t have anything else to give you.”

She bit her lip. “You don’t have to give me anything.”

“No, but I want to.”

“You gave me the knives.” She still couldn’t explain the effect that gift had had on her, not when she had been carting his tags around for all this time and had not felt anything deeper than fond superstition connected with them. A gift to save her life from a man she had not expected to think twice about it, who had tried to kill her in the past. Yet she understood what he meant now as well: a piece of each other to hold in the face of everything that could be taken away. But she still didn’t have anything to give him at all. It made her awkward.

“Did you like them?” He was pleased. “I’m glad. But I meant I don’t have anything personal. Unless you wanted Steve.”

She cackled again. He kissed her quick, grinning, and took her hand the way she had his just now.

“Natalia – would you wear these, sweetheart? Wear ‘em and think of me –“

Natasha laughed and laughed. James looped the chain over her head again and let them fall to her chest. His flesh-and-blood fingers traced a line from the hollow of her throat to the front of her bra; then pressed against the tags where they hung just below the black cotton. She was pulling, very slowly, the zip of his jeans down, and it was his turn to chew on his bottom lip and half-close his eyes, breathing very… deliberately.

“Shall I leave ‘em on for this?”

His eyes flew wide open. “If you wanna.”

“Well,” she said softly. “I hardly ever take ‘em off.”

Full-body shudder. The tags were rapidly taking on a brand new significance in her mind. Her trousers came undone much quicker than her shirt had; but he had to topple her onto the bed and wrestle them off while both of them were laughing – “Oh my god, oh my god, they’re just _jeans_ , come on!” – “I told you these things were no good for nothing” – and then he was on his knees in front of her, easing them over her ankles, and the tags were hanging heavy and cool against Natasha’s chest; when James bent his head between her thighs she wrapped one hand around them and sank the other into his hair.

*********

He usually slept on his front; it was most comfortable for his arm. She sprawled across his back or beside him or half-underneath him, unless one of them was having that kind of night that had touches leading to chokeholds; those were always fun. One morning they had forgotten to close the blinds the night before, and the sunlight woke Natasha very early, a thin yellow gleam on the white walls that suffused the room with pretty but deeply unwelcome light.

James had his face mostly buried in the pillows. Natasha extricated herself from the duvet with a groan, meaning to reach over and close the blinds. The covers slid down James’ back; she had put bruises on his hips a few days ago and thin red scratches on his shoulder-blades last night, between the bullet scar on his right side and the thin knife-line along his ribs.

Natasha touched it. Where had she seen…?

“44,” he said in a muffled voice. “Fightin’ though that German blockade in – hell – France? Ask Steve. It looks like a pocket-knife but it was a fucking machete.”

She kissed his shoulder. “I wouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s OK. I like to count ‘em up sometimes, it’s reassuring when I remember where I got them all.” He tugged her back down to his side as she laughed at him. “Stay here.”

“Blinds!”

“We’ve never had sex in sunlight.” He was grinning, but he kissed her very seriously.

“That hipster couple across the road will film us.”

“Come on!”

“Secret hipster pornography ring.”

“Because one time you saw ‘em running around their kitchen naked.”

“With a camera!”

“Way _way_ too interested in my neighbours.”

“Your entire building thinks I’m a Russian hooker,” Natasha pointed out.

He burst out laughing, which gave her the opportunity to slide out of bed and close the blinds without further objections on his part.

“There.”

“Spoilsport.”

“You wanna bet?”

James flung the covers back and sat up, eyes fixed on her, mouth tight with that impish smile. “I don’t bet with Russian – superspies.”

“Oh well saved.”

“Oh come back, will you? I’m sorry about the blinds.”

“Don’t pout, it’s unattractive.” She reached back and hopped onto the window-sill; it was just deep enough for purpose, and the glass was cool against her back, the bedroom, now dim and grey, a warm and welcoming cave for them to hide in.

“Is it?” James stood up.

Natasha crooked her fingers at him, beckoning.

*********

Another time, moving together in the deep unhurried rhythm they both liked best, she said, “Wall sex!”

James said, “Put it on the list,” and dropped his head to her shoulder, hands fisting in the sheets by her head. “Nat – _Nat_.”

“Here,” she teased, pushing her fingers into his. “With you. As always. Haven’t we, though?”

He hissed something that might have been a curse. “No?”

Natasha said, “No?” Hmm. There had been – concrete, and – but she remembered his smile when she’d wrapped her legs around his waist, she was sure.

Incredulous, he said, “Are you thinking of someone _else_ while we’re –“

“Just fantasising,” she said. “About _you_. Don’t _stop_ , you bastard.”

He didn’t.

*********

When you thought about it, they had an awful lot of sex. Natasha was peripherally aware that there was such a thing in relationships that people called ‘the honeymoon phase’, but she’d never experienced one before (as a matter of fact, she’d find herself hard-pressed to determine exactly when she had agreed, or decided, that whatever was going on with her and James even was a relationship in the traditional sense of the word), and it made her sort of nervous. She thought about him all the damn time. She thought about sex with him all the damn time. Was that _normal_?

Judicious googling suggested it wasn’t totally abnormal, at least. Hmm.

This was one of those moments – infrequent in her life but occasionally there – where it might’ve come in handy to have close friends who were girls. Imagine asking Clint about her sex life with the Winter Soldier, God. And she kind of needed Ms Potts and Hill to still respect her in the morning, so that was right out as well.

*********

Sometimes he called her _Natalia_. She liked that.

*********

Every now and then he would call her up and ask her to stay away for a week or so, said he was nightmare-ridden and no use to anyone. Natasha had been childishly glad to learn that Steve didn’t see him in those weeks either, so she was doubly surprised to find him at her door one morning three days after just such a phone call.

“Sorry,” he said, blinking at her a little owlishly. There were dark circles under his eyes and he seemed pale. “Nightmares. Bad week. Uh, mostly about you, and I –“

She propped her hand on her hip. “I thought we agreed you were over that time I tried to garrotte you in DC.”

It worked: he laughed out loud. “Not like that. Uh, we’re, I don’t know, underground or something, and you’re – being – you know. I thought it was just a reboot of the good ol’ 1943 edition of the Barnes Nightmare Reel, but it’s been by for four days in a row and I just had to see you.”

Natasha caught hold of his arms to pull him inside the apartment. Maneuvering him around so she could kick the door shut, she stepped unhesitatingly into his personal space and got him to wrap his arms around her. James dropped his face into her hair and held her so tightly she wondered if her ribs were creaking. Then he loosed his grip a bit and sighed.

“Thanks.”

She fisted her hands in his t-shirt. “What for? Loving you?” The word came to her lips without conscious volition and wouldn’t be substituted. This, she presumed, was because there was not a substitute to be had.

“That, above all.”

*********

Hunting through the drawers in her living room for a USB cable, she found Becca’s letter in its careful plastic covering. She hadn’t thought about it in weeks. Steve’s Bucky Bear drawing seemed fresh and new when she looked at it, as if, for the first time, Natasha could not only perceive but understand the affection in each line of the sketch. As for Becca’s letter…

She read it again, lingering over the sentences. It was still a charming letter; it was still full of fond gossip and best wishes and love. Natasha gripped his tags as she read, smiling to herself. _love always, your sister Becca_. The fascination was gone, the need to read and re-read, to tease every nuance out of the words, to endlessly picture explanations for incidents referred to. She no longer needed an intermediary.

Natasha stroked her thumb across the signature. How to give it back to him without hurting him further, that was the question. She couldn’t tell him about Zola’s grotesque little trophy box, not under any circumstances. She – she owed it to Becca that having the letter back would make him happy.

In the end she sent him letter and drawing both in the post, wrapped carefully in tissue paper and slid into a padded envelope. They still swapped postcards, and they still never talked about them. She liked it. It was like texting, only more intimate: spending time choosing the postcard, walking to the post office to buy a stamp, thinking of him as she did so.

On the other hand, using the post meant that she was biting her nails for a few days thinking about what his reaction might be. When it arrived, it was – a postcard.

 _damn you_ , crossed out but still legible. That was only fair. And underneath: _how many times have you read it_

She sent back: _enough_

_why??_

_why did I read it? same reason I took you dancing._

What with one postcard and another it was nearly two weeks before she saw him again. She hadn’t had the guts to call and he hadn’t chosen to, but James was waiting for her outside her building when she came back from a meeting with Hill, leaning against a lamppost in those ever-present sunglasses and a pair of jeans she was proud of having been instrumental in making him buy. He had always waited at lampposts, just beyond the circle of light, and she had forced herself to slow deliberate footsteps, throat tight with excitement, stomach hollow with longing. Another few steps. Another. Then, like salvation: each other.

She had slept badly last night and was jittery with too much caffeine as compensation. The wind was making a mess of her hair and she really shouldn’t have worn this shirt, it was too tight across her chest. Why had she ever bought it? There was a moment when she was tempted to turn around and vanish in the opposite direction before he noticed her.

Natasha marched straight up to him and waited.

“No right whatsoever,” he said.

“No,” she admitted.

He reached out to her. Less than a year ago she would have had to hide a flinch, but now she just raised her eyebrows as his fingers dipped into the collar of her shirt. He tugged on the chain of the tags.

“… thank you though. For giving it back.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m –”

“Don’t apologise, you’ll ruin it.”

“Ruin what?”

“The part where I never wanna talk about this again. Is that OK?” Dryly.

Natasha shrugged and looked away. “Your sister.”

“My privacy.”

“Well.”

“Well,” he mocked. “Look at you, being all embarrassed. You’d gut me if I’d done that to you.”

That was true. She sighed. “Newsflash! The crazy Russian assassin who calls herself ‘the Black Widow’ for fun is not a good person.”

“Don’t play it off, you little liar,” James said fondly.

Her mouth curled into a smile in spite of herself. He caught her chin in thumb and forefinger and kissed her. Her hands came up to clutch at his shoulder, the back of his head.

“Forgiven?”

“Only because you are so very smoking hot.”

“Liar,” she echoed. They kissed again. His arms were around her waist, hauling her in and holding her close. Someone on the other side of the street whooped at them and laughed – probably teenagers.

“Will you tell me about her?” she asked softly. “About Becca? And your Mam?”

He smiled, a slow wide thing that transformed his face from sulkily handsome to helplessly charming. “I’d like that.”

*********

“Why did you keep it for so long?”

“I… don’t really know. I was afraid to at first. And I liked to read it. I’m sorry, I know how that sounds. But she was lovely, Becca. I wish I’d known her. I kinda wish I’d known you then, too.”

“Yes she was.” He sighed. “I miss her every day, you know. My little sister who grew up and became a doctor and had a daughter of her own… and here I am without her. It’s like she’s the one who died. And I don’t know what she looked like… the last time I saw her she was thirteen. Ragged hair and scabbed knees more often than not that drove Mam up the walls. But she turned into a lady while I was in Italy being pumped full of Zola’s experimental nightmare serums.”

Nothing she could say would soothe that grief or bitterness. She wondered at herself that she hadn't seen it before. Then again, she had never asked. That made her feel guilty. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” He glanced at her. “I couldn’t be mad, you know, not for long – to have at least that letter back, to hear her voice again… did I say thank you for that?”

“Yes, though I don’t deserve it.”

“Don’t harp about it.” He was smiling, blinking hard. So was she. They were sprawled on the garden chairs on Natasha’s balcony, working their way steadily through a crate of white wine; Natasha’s glass, currently empty, dangled precariously from her right hand, hanging over the arm of the chair, while her feet were propped on the balcony railing. James’ legs were stretched out in parallel to hers, crossed at the ankle, but he was sitting up straight (… straighter) and rubbing at his stubble with the fingers of his left hand. They had started drinking about three hours ago and Natasha for one was in no hurry to stop. Far above the city smog the stars were probably out. Down here most of the light was provided by the streetlamps below them, a yellow glow that glittered off the wine glasses and James’ arm. She had been meaning for about half an hour to get up and close the balcony door, light a candle or something.

After a long silence she said, “Listen. As tonight seems to be a night for really deep and personal conversations, there’s something else we should probably talk about.”

He rolled his head sideways on the back of the chair to look at her. “We are talking about what I think we’re talking about, aren’t we?”

She smiled ruefully. Of course she wasn’t the only one to notice. “The thing where we’ve done this before.” She gestured between them with the wine glass.

“Yeah.”

“When did you know?” She was curious.

“I’m not sure I do,” James admitted. “Or you’ve just said it, so at least I know I’m not going totally mad. But.” He shook his head. “I dream about you. Have done for months. At first I thought, well of course, I’m falling for this girl, of course I’m dreaming about her.” He sat up to pour more wine for himself, then held the bottle out to her in offering. She held up her glass, watching his fingers on the bottle as he poured for her. “But they started getting very specific, if you follow me. Detailed. Just the other week – there was this room. It had the ugliest green carpet, and we absolutely trashed it, and I’m sure it was in Berlin. Now when the hell were we ever in Berlin? And neither of us has a green carpet.”

“We trashed the room?”

“Oh yes.”

Natasha laughed. “I gotta be honest: I don’t remember trashing rooms.”

“We did, though. I remember the way you looked…” He grinned at her. Even in the near-dark she saw his lascivious little tongue-flick against his lips and bit her own to keep from smiling back. “When did you know?”

“Ah. I don’t either – like you said. There wasn’t any one thing. Just little… bits and pieces that didn’t make sense else. I knew your scars almost before I’d seen them. And once I started wondering – how did you know I liked the ballet?” She shook her head. “Little things. Earlier today, you waiting for me on the street.”

“Yes – I thought that too.”

“I’m glad.”

He looked out over the railing at the street below, the lit-up apartments opposite, the city lights running off in all directions into the distance. “That we’re so consistent?”

Natasha choked on a sip of wine, laughing again. “We _are_ consistent. Fucking hell.”

“I’m glad Odessa wasn’t worse than it was,” he said distantly.

“Oh, love. Don’t.”

“Or DC, come to that. I could’ve killed the two people I love most in the world without ever knowing it…”

“ _Don’t_.”

He jumped at her tone. “Sorry.”

“It’s over,” she said. “It’s all over.”

“Bar the shouting.” He was smiling again.

“And the missing memories.”

“Do you want those back?”

“Yes,” instantly, and surprised. “Of course. They’re a part of me.”

“Hmm.”

“You don’t.”

“Not really. It happened; we were separated; we’re here.”

She paused, considering. Very fatalistic, which made it very unlike him, rather unnervingly so even. Natasha sipped her wine before putting the glass on the floor in preparation to standing up. She took her feet off the balcony railing, ready to go to him. “That’s not like you.”

“I don’t care,” he said, voice flat again. “Oh, I’m sure it was all very tragic and romantic to live through, but I’m perfectly happy with the distorted nightmare version of what was done to you; I don’t need the vivid Technicolor edition in my head for good and all.”

She went to him. James put his own glass down and folded his arms around her as she draped herself across his lap, drawing his legs up and shifting in the chair until she was comfortably perched atop him, her arm flung across his shoulder and her face close to his.

“I hope you won’t mind if I go looking for mine.”

“Natalia, it’s your mind. I’m just telling you what I can and can’t cope with right now.”

Sometimes she found herself wanting to kiss him and yet holding back, as if afraid of the consequences or aware that it was forbidden – that had been another hint – but now she leaned forward a mere few inches and pressed a kiss to the side of his mouth. “Tragic and romantic,” she said, summoning an undercurrent of laughter. “Like Romeo and Juliet.”

“They died,” he said, laughing.

“So did we,” Natasha said before she stopped to think. “That us, I mean.”

“Yeah.” He flexed his fingers against her hip, her waist, leaned in to kiss her back, very lightly. “I’m sort of impressed with us now, actually.”

“So am I, believe me.”

“So.” James was smiling, loose and relaxed underneath her. His breath smelt of the wine they had drunk and his eyes were bright, narrowed a little; when their eyes met her breath caught. Two weeks in moderate emotional turmoil without him – which, granted, was her own fault – but she didn’t want to spend the rest of the night gnawing on their lost memories, talking to death the mights and maybes of their past. By the look in his eyes, neither did he.

“So,” Natasha said, and wriggled a little deeper into his lap. (She had never had makeup sex before. The internet suggested it was supposed to be really good.) In a fit of mischief she went on, “You promised me all the stories you have about your childhood, you know, and I think I’d like to collect” – she had to break off to strangle a shriek when he stood up, lifting her in a bridal carry.

“My childhood is what you wanna talk about right now.”

“Is everything about sex with you,” she said happily, winding her arms about his neck. “Yes I wanna hear about your damn childhood. _Tomorrow morning_.”

“Early afternoon,” he countered, and carried her inside.

 *********

The next time Natasha got a fine sunny day to herself she wended her way to the graveyard to lay a sheaf of forget-me-nots on Becca's grave. James had told her they were Becca's favourites. After a minute she plucked one out of the bunch and laid it by the plain headstone to Becca's right whose inscription read simply, _James Buchanan Barnes, 1917 - 1945_.

She didn't know what she'd expected, coming here: graveside epiphanies were for fictional melodramas, and anyway she had nothing to have an epiphany about. But she was glad to have paid her respects to Becca at last, months late though she was. It was a lovely spot: green and grassy, ringed with trees and bordered with flowers.

"It suits you, little sister," Natasha said to Becca quietly. Oh, it was stupid to talk to a headstone. What was there to say? Sleep well? I wish I'd known you? I'll look after him? Thank you? She shook her head, hair flying. Maybe she'd come back, every now and then, with another bunch of flowers. Maybe one day James would feel able to come too. She hoped so. For now - for now she left the graveyard slowly, wandering pensive and quiet along well-tended gravel paths, glad to be making her way back home. It really was a lovely day.

 

 

 


End file.
